Visual Thinking Research

Ingrid Alfaro

Assignment #8



The Visual Thinking Research project that I (Ingrid) and my friend (Erica) did together was tested on two puzzles from puzzles.com. The first puzzle we did was “The Cat”. The instructions were to find and count all the triangles in the picture. My strategy on counting 20 triangles in the picture was based on the reading “Images in Action” by Mckim. I was able to use the pattern seeking- finding technique in order to find the triangles along picture. Besides that I also utilize the categorizing pattern technique which helped me put together the shape of what was to be considered a triangle. Another technique that I put into use was the pattern completion due to the fact that some of the triangles in the tail were not complete which all added to 7. The rest of the triangles can b find in the body=3, and 10 along the face with that said I also used the visual memory which helped retain in record of the amount of triangles displayed.

My friend Erica came up with 18 triangles, she basically used pattern finding, categorizing, and visual memory. She did not use the pattern completion technique which is the reason for her not to be able to find the other two triangles in the picture.

The second puzzle that we both worked on was “Name the Month”. This puzzle consists on guessing the month by visualizing the symbols provided. I came up with the answer a little faster than Erica. The reason for that was because there was a cognitive illusion involved at the beginning which rapidly transformed into an inverse drawing technique and that was the reason for me drawing the horizontal line along the symbols, and that is how I figure out that the month was July. Erica did figure out the month of July but she apply spatial analogy as visual reasoning when she analyzing the 4 symbols and the months that have 4 letters.